BSO introduces $25 season pass for college students

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, like arts groups everywhere, wants to draw in a younger crowd. This season, the BSO is making it even easier for college students to get in on the action -- a new product called "BSO Student Select."

A few "premium events" are excluded, but orchestra officials say that still leaves about 90 percent of the scheduled concerts. BSO Student Select card-holders will be seated in the best sections available the day of the performance.

The pass can be used at both BSO homes, Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore and Strathmore in North Bethesda.

But wait -- there's more. Admission to post-performance parties on BSO College Nights, offered four times during the season, is also included in the deal.

For those of college age used to buying $10 rush tickets just before a concert, they will still be offered during the season as well, but the $25 pass sure looks like the best bargain.

A jolting cupful of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" for your Midweek Madness break. I especially like the bits of choreography, as well as what I gather is a Finnish folk song that these guys from the Fabulous Backstrom Brothers Show toss into the mix.

Some pianists become narrower -- in terms of repertoire, that is -- as they grow older. They stick contentedly with, say, a Mozart-Beethoven-Schubert diet, or maybe just big helpings of Rachmaninoff and Liszt. More disturbingly, some young keyboard players restrict themselves to a few composers...

Baltimore arts patrons Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker have donated $1 million to the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University to establish scholarships for students of near-legendary pianist and veteran Peabody faculty artist Leon Fleisher.